Media Websites Services and Users Subscription: Models for Online Journalism

A crucial question that has arisen is whether the involvement of Web users can be extended to the funding of news organizations aimed at their financial independence from traditional funding practices. The evolution of multimodal media websites, the media crisis and the growing dissatisfaction of the citizens, create the conditions for online journalism to work with citizens, and through emerging journalistic practices such as crowdsourcing. This concept is a form of collective online activity in which a person or a group of people volunteer to engage in work that always involves mutual benefit to both sides. The main research question of this paper concerns the analysis of the current situation regarding crowdfunding and the adoption of best practices on the technological features, services, and tools used by websites around the world. Very few media have tried to apply even nowadays, the proposed model of journalism, which this study is going to research. The results of the study shape new perspectives and practices for participation, journalism, and democracy

Online Journalism: Crowdsourcing, and Media Websites in an Era of Participation

The era of journalism and the participation of the readers on online media websites have changed online journalism. The research interest is now focused on removing the distinction between the publisher/entrepreneur and the journalist/user, with the ultimate goal of actively involving citizens in the journalistic process but also in the web presence of media websites. The evolution of technology, the deep media crisis and the growing dissatisfaction of the citizens, create the conditions for journalism to work with citizens, and in particular through citizen journalism and journalism crowdsourcing. This concept is a form of collective online activity in which a person or a group of people volunteer to engage in work that always involves mutual benefit to both sides. The main research question of this research concerns the analysis of the current situation regarding crowdsourcing, co-creation and UGC and the adoption of best practices such as crowdcreation, comments from the users, crowdwisdom, instant-messaging applications (MIMs) and crowdvoting used by media websites around the world. Very few media have tried to apply even nowadays, the proposed model of journalism, which this study is going to research. The results of the study shape new perspectives and practices for online journalism and democracy

Media Websites Services and Users Subscription Models for Online Journalism

A crucial question that has arisen is whether the involvement of Web users can be extended to the funding of news organizations aimed at their financial independence from traditional funding practices. The evolution of multimodal media websites, the media crisis and the growing dissatisfaction of the citizens, create the conditions for online journalism to work with citizens, and through emerging journalistic practices such as crowdsourcing. This concept is a form of collective online activity in which a person or a group of people volunteer to engage in work that always involves mutual benefit to both sides. The main research question of this paper concerns the analysis of the current situation regarding crowdfunding and the adoption of best practices on the technological features, services, and tools used by websites around the world. Very few media have tried to apply even nowadays, the proposed model of journalism, which this study is going to research. The results of the study shape new perspectives and practices for participation, journalism, and democrac

The Role of Inflammation in Diabetes: Current Concepts and Future Perspectives

Diabetes is a complex metabolic disorder affecting the glucose status of the human body. Chronic hyperglycaemia related to diabetes is associated with end organ failure. The clinical relationship between diabetes and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is well established. This makes therapeutic approaches that simultaneously target diabetes and atherosclerotic disease an attractive area for research. The majority of people with diabetes fall into two broad pathogenetic categories, type 1 or type 2 diabetes. The role of obesity, adipose tissue, gut microbiota and pancreatic beta cell function in diabetes are under intensive scrutiny with several clinical trials to have been completed while more are in development. The emerging role of inflammation in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes (T1D and T1D) pathophysiology and associated metabolic disorders, has generated increasing interest in targeting inflammation to improve prevention and control of the disease. After an extensive review of the possible mechanisms that drive the metabolic pattern in T1D and T2D and the inflammatory pathways that are involved, it becomes ever clearer that future research should focus on a model of combined suppression for various inflammatory response pathways

Long-Term Feedback Enabled Energy Management Control Framework for Ships with Hybrid Power Supply

In the present study, a Model Predictive Control (MPC) - based, Energy Management Strategy (EMS) is proposed, aiming at the minimisation of the fuel consumption of vessels with hybrid propulsion and power supply. This approach is capable of utilising online information regarding realistic future predictions of the propulsive power demand, addressing the current gap in the literature regarding the implementation of MPC EMSs onboard ships, and pragmatic future mission information utilisation. To the author's best knowledge, MPC for fuel consumption minimisation has not yet been implemented at this timescale in maritime propulsion plants with hybrid power supply. Furthermore, online mission information from the Integrated Bridge Systems (IBSs) and the governor's human input cannot be utilised by EMSs onboard ships, due to the lack of a mathematical pathway to enable such an information feedback flow. Increasingly powerful processing units in ship controllers and a wider application of batteries in marine powertrains motivated such a computationally heavy and, simultaneously, highly fuel-efficient control approach. The proposed controller framework has been tested and verified in a case study using a Mean Value First Principle (MVFP) propulsion plant model of a hybrid naval vessel with batteries in Simulink®, provided by DAMEN® SNS. By using provided mission data, realistic mission profiles were generated, in which the proposed controller is validated against perfectly and piecewise, non-perfectly informed Dynamic Programming (DP) solutions in an information barrier scheme, yielding close to optimal performance, and a fuel consumption reduction of up to 3.5% when compared to any non-long-term feedback enabled controller.Marine Technolog

The value of near-infrared spectroscopy for the assessment of calf muscle function in venous patients

Objective: Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a noninvasive technique with the potential to determine the degree of tissue oxygenation. The aim of the current study was to investigate the use of NIRS as a reliable method of detecting calf muscle pump dysfunction in groups of patients with venous disease. Methods: Patients with superficial venous insufficiency (SW) or history of deep venous thrombosis (DVT) were classified according to the comprehensive classification system for chronic venous disorders (clinical class, etiology, anatomy, and pathophysiology) and compared with controls (GROUP variable). A 10-stage evaluation of ambulatory venous function was performed, and corresponding values of calf regional oxygen saturation (crSaO(2), %) at each phase were recorded (TIME variable). Thereafter, the percentage changes of crSaO(2) values (A scores, %) between a given phase and the reference phase were estimated. Differences among groups and phases were evaluated using analysis of variance. Subgroup analysis between C0-C2 and C3-C6 patients was performed. The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to detect the best predictive capability for SW and DVT. Results: A total of 30 patients with SW, 31 patients with DVT, and 34 controls were included in the study. A statistically significant effect of TIME (F = 382.4; P < .001) and TIME x GROUP interaction (F = 6.3; P < .001) was recorded. Concerning prediction, we found a statistically significant area under the curve (AUC) for SW (AUC = 0.72; 95% confidence interval, 0.58-0.83; P = .003) and for DVT (AUC = 0.83; 95% confidence interval, 0.71-0.92; P < .0001) patients. Conclusions: The measurement of crSaO(2) using NIBS detected alterations in calf muscle pump oxygenation during exercise and differences in tissue oxygenation among SW patients, DVT patients, and controls. NIBS may represent a reliable noninvasive tool for the study of calf muscle dysfunction in venous disease and a useful vehicle for generating testable hypotheses in the laboratory setting